


One Step Forward

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26339968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Gladio and Noctis prepare for a royal portrait before the departure for Altissia.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	One Step Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Originally prompted over at my Tumblr.

“How do I look?”

Dress uniforms were tailored; a bespoke jacket of heavy material stretched down like a wall behind Gladiolus, the Kingsglaive insignia spread across his broad back while the Amicitia shield decorated a place of honour on his shoulder. While Noctis watched— pretending he wasn’t interested in the least, but stealing looks through reflections in the many mirrors dotted around the little room that had been nestled between the Citadel’s royal apartments and the Shield’s traditional quarters— Gladio had revealed the new uniform piece by piece from the dark box where it had been neatly folded. It had been left like a present by Clarus for his son in the midst of the chaos that was hammering out the exact wording of the impending peace treaties with the Imperial wolves at Lucis’ bastion gates. 

From across the small room, Noctis could feel the magic woven into the armour. It was ancient and new at the same time— a piece of the Lucian royal magic threaded through every gap left by the heavy wool that Noctis assumed would be stifling in the watery heat of summer in Altissia. It hummed with promises made by Kings to their Shields from centuries ago, the vows of honour and royal protection still circling through Noctis’ head from when they had finished their own ceremony in a far less bespoke armour months ago. 

“Like a half-drunk behemoth,” Noctis’ spared Gladio the barest of withered looks head on, and Gladio pretended they hadn’t locked eyes half a dozen times in the reflections. “Are you done preening?”

“Only half, eh?” Gladio offered his own smirk in response to the show, keeping up his end of the unspoken bargain between us. Pretending he hadn’t noticed Noctis watching, or the waning interest in the phone in his hands. “I must look pretty damn good, then.”

Noctis had been there for each of the fittings. He had tagged along to Ignis’ and Prompto’s fittings just the same, when the uniforms were little more than white outlines of patterns on the heavy fabric. He had been there to help Prompto pick out the little decorations that would separate his uniform from anyone else, and there as Ignis requested a small scrap of fabric from a childhood comfort added to the hidden inner folds with his. He had been there as the tailor tutted his disapproval over the way Gladio seemed to deviate from Shield traditions by foregoing the royal crest and requesting his own; compromising on size and prominence while Noctis shrugged helplessly under the looks of the tailors pleading he intervene with some royal decorum. 

But the finished product was a far cry from the loose shapes that they had spent hours in the shop being measured and sketched out by an old tailor muttering to his small army of assistants. The half-spoken numbers and smudged white marks had seemed like magic spells now— a form of magic itself to produce the perfectly formed uniform accented by the dark wall made of the heavy overcoat practically singing with protective magics. It could drive Noctis to distraction, the humming, pulsing power trailing after every subtle move and sweep of his Shield’s arm. 

“Specs yelling at you yet?”

The question brought Noctis’ attention back to his phone, where he quietly closed the game he had been playing for the last thirty minutes while Gladio reverently examined the formal outfit and dressed. There were twenty missed texts from Ignis, half of them warnings for timing and the appointment they were not quite late for yet. “Not yet.”

“Good,” Gladio moved easily in the uniform, the boots little different than his usual all-purpose hiking boots now carefully set aside with the civilian clothes he had been wearing. “’Cause you need to get dressed, Highness.”

“Yeah, I would have,” Noctis frowned, shifting in his overstuffed seat while Gladio approached— looking older, stronger, and more confident than Noctis could ever remember seeing him. “But you wanted me to see your outfit.”

Large hands rested on the back of the chair, arms not usually covered caged him in, and Noctis felt his mouth go dry at the realization that this was what Gladio was meant to be. The uniform accented every curve, hinted at every muscle, stretched and fell like a wall that blocked out the rest of the room without even trying. Gladio over him like this could shield him from the rest of the room without ever actually intending to.

“I wanted you to see me.”

Noctis turned away from Gladio’s kiss at the last moment, and pretended not to see the hurt that crossed his features. “I need to get dressed.”

And with that, Gladio’s presence was gone from the chair. The room opened to it’s brightness again, and the world seemed more vivid around the dark wall that was a royal Shield in his formal uniform. But Gladio was smirking as he gestured to the second box left by the previous generation of Shield. The royal regalia, fit for a Prince’s marriage. Today it was fit for a royal portrait. 

Noctis slipped from the chair to grab the box.

Disappearing into the curtained change room, he took a moment to banish the image of Gladio in uniform from his mind as best he could. He took a moment to compose himself, and not think about how easily Gladio moved in the outfit when every cut of fabric and decoration shining in the artificial light looked like it should restrict movement. Like it should be pinning Gladio into place. 

Noctis tried not to think about how much he wanted to be pinned into place beneath the man in that uniform that seemed to exude raw power. 

The image was never quite banished from his mind as he dressed quickly, thankful for the simple suit of his own uniform. The decorations came later— the traditional cape and chains already down in the study where the portrait would be taken— when all the trappings of his own uniform were needed for the formal appearance that would strip away his own identity. Even the suit tailored to him as a base was modelled after his father’s preferred style. He fidgeted with the hem and cut before the mirrors in a way that Gladio hadn’t with his own uniform, and felt sick with the impending portrait that would immortalize him as a copy of his father who was a copy of his father who was a copy of his father. 

The weight of the Citadel seemed to be barely held aloft over him by Gladio’s easy confidence as he fixed the lines and way the suit rested with a smile and a “looking good.” 

It wasn’t until he was in the stairwell with Gladio— looking down at the little personalizations the Shield had been able to add to his uniform as Gladio was a few steps ahead— that Noctis spoke. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Kind of have to, Highness,” Gladio’s voice rumbled through the stairwell, their steps echoing off the polished stone walls barely illuminated by the ornate sconces placed every few feet until it was a winding pattern of ascending light. “It’s tradition.”

“Fuck tradition,” Gladio turned to glare at him from the few steps ahead, letting Noctis look down on his Shield with a new perspective he supposed he was going to one day experience anyway. The throne, after all was set above the rest. “I mean I don’t want to go to Altissia, or get married, or—”

“Noct,” Even at a disadvantage, Gladio made him feel small. His voice had lost the easy humour it normally carried, his eyes softened, and he stepped up to bring them eye-to-eye on the stairs; “hey, easy. We talked about this.”

“I know! I know, it’s just…” He wanted to go back to how it had been; his apartment, the little haven in the city where no one would give a second thought to him cuddled up to Gladio on a rainy afternoon, or waking up to prod Gladio into reading aloud while they made breakfast. “It’s too much.”

“And I’m still here, Noct. I still got you.”

He thought of the kiss he had turned away from in the little changing room nestled between the Citadel apartments. Of the way his mouth had gone dry the moment he watched Gladio slip that heavy jacket singing with untold and ancient royal power on. He thought of the way Gladio was looking at him now— looking up at him with that gentleness that always seemed to be lost from the outside. 

He thought of that constant in the promises they had already made to each other. 

Noctis moved on instinct as Gladio reached up to offer that gentle encouragement. He leaned down to take that kiss that had been turned away earlier, and drew back that promise to stay together that still hung between them.


End file.
